‘I Had an Incredible Escape’: British Woman Tells of Close Encounter with Spanish Wildfire

THE GUARDIAN: Jeanne Henny, 74, put her friend, a wheelchair and two dogs into the car and drove away, only to meet fire surging on to the road

Screenshot taken from this Guardian article. | Jeanne Henny: ‘You thought the fire was miles away and then suddenly it was in front of you on the road.’ Photograph: Handout
The speed, scale and ferocity of the wildfire in and around the Bédar municipality of Almería took everyone by surprise.

Jeanne Henny, an English woman who has had a house in the tiny hamlet of Los Pinos for 33 years, initially took Thursday afternoon’s yellow skies as proof that a calima wind from the Sahara was showering desert dust on the area. Then she noticed the smoke and saw from a fire-alert app that a blaze had broken out.

“There was a lot of smoke, but it was far away,” said Henny, 74. “We get fires and there’s some kind of scare most years. The police will come to each house and tell us to get out and there will be sirens going. But this time it didn’t happen like that.”

The gravity of the situation became apparent when a neighbour knocked on her door at 5.30pm and told her it was time that she and her friend, who uses a wheelchair, abandoned their house.

It took Henny almost half an hour to get her friend and two dogs into the car. She had to leave her five cats behind. » | Sam Jones in Madrid | Friday, July 10, 2026